In Georgia, if we're going to see any gains over the next four years, it'll be in the courts. That's absolutely critical, because with a clean sweep of statewide offices and a majority in the House, anti-gun Democrats aren't going to play nice with gun owners. We know this.
But now the state Supreme Court has issued a ruling that will have significant ramifications for legal challenges.
It's one of those insidious things that looks reasonable but can still cause issues.
Georgia: Georgia Supreme Court
Trammell v. State, Case No. S26A1334 (Ga.): Georgia Supreme Court requires notice to the AG before ruling on felon-ban challenges. The court unanimously held that OCGA § 9-4-7(c) requires service on the Attorney General before a trial court rules on a constitutional challenge, including in criminal cases. It vacated the ruling on the Second Amendment claim and remanded.
Why it matters: This is a procedural trap for defense counsel bringing Bruen challenges in Georgia. The court did not decide whether the felon ban is constitutional.
Now, notifying the attorney general of a constitutional challenge makes a certain amount of sense. Technically, that's the office that should be defending the constitutionality of the law.
So how is it a procedural trap?
Well, for one thing, it creates delays and increased expenses for the plaintiff. Now the plaintiff is taking on the attorney general's office, rather than a local office that might have been the one to enforce the law. That means it'll be a lot more expensive to actually beat the challenge, especially as any attorney general office is going to know all the tricks to get a case dismissed on procedural grounds.
Now, with this ruling, the state gets another chance to defend this challenge, and that means Trammell is still left flapping in the breeze. After all, he didn't rule on the constitutionality of the law in question. That will create more expense for Mr. Trammell, which means it's entirely possible that he'll drop the suit at some point because he doesn't have the funds to continue.
Not that it will matter.
Since this case first kicked off, there have been the previously discussed changes in the makeup of the statewide offices. Our new attorney general is most definitely not someone who will follow in the footsteps of someone like James Uthmeier down in Florida. Quite the contrary. While the Supreme Court is technically non-partisan, that doesn't mean partisanship doesn't show up in the election results. It just means no one gets to put a "D" after their name in press reports.
In other words, Trammell is probably screwed at this point.
While there wasn't a lot of a chance that the previous court would have ruled in his favor even if he'd followed the correct procedures, the reality is that the new court isn't going to support making it lawful for a convicted felon, even a non-violent one, to get his gun rights back.
That will leave the federal system, where things really need to be heard in the first place.
After all, even if Georgia were to somehow allow gun ownership by non-violent felons, the truth of the matter is that the federal law will still hold supreme. Trammell would still be a non-violent felon and thus prohibited under the law.
Is it a procedural trap, though?
Probably not. It's not great, but the jurisdictional considerations are real, and there's no way the court was ever going to argue that a local DA was the right person to defend state law, even if they could defend it adequately.
I'm not liking the direction my state is taking, and while I see the logic to this decision, it also means that it's going to be a rough four years, at a minimum.
